UN Report: ISIS May Have Committed Genocide

Report listing atrocities committed by ISIS shows it is guilty of 'war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide' against Yazidis.

Arutz Sheva Staff, 19/03/15 12:50

Yazidi refugees in Iraq

Reuters

Islamic State terrorists may have committed genocide in trying to wipe out the Yazidi minority in Iraq, the UN said Thursday in a report laying out a litany of atrocities, according to AFP.

ISIS "may have committed all three of the most serious international crimes - namely war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide," the United Nations human rights office said in a statement.

The agency published a horrifying report detailing killings, torture, rape, sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers by the group.

All of these crimes, it said, were violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, and some may amount to "crimes against humanity" and "war crimes."

The report, which is based on interviews with more than 100 witnesses and survivors of attacks in Iraq between June 2014 and February 2015, especially highlights brutal ISIS attacks on ethnic and religious groups, including Yazidis, Christians, Turkmen, Kurds and Shia.

ISIS, which controls a swathe of territory in Iraq and neighboring Syria, launched "a series of systematic and widespread attacks" on the Yazidi minority's heartland in the northern Nineveh province last August.

According to the report, the attacks appeared intended "to destroy the Yazidi as a group," which "strongly suggests" ISIS is guilty of "genocide" against the Yazidi.

In numerous Yazidi villages, men and boys over the age of 14 were rounded up and shot, while the women and girls were abducted as the "spoils of war.'

The report, which was ordered by the UN Human Rights Council last September following a request from the Iraqi government, pointed out that some villages "were entirely emptied of their Yazidi population."

Many Yazidi women and girls were sold into sexual slavery or handed over to ISIS members as "gifts", the report said, adding that witnesses had described hearing girls as young as six screaming for help as they were raped in a house used by ISIS fighters.

A pregnant 19-year-old had told the investigators she had been repeatedly raped by an ISIS "doctor" over a period of two and a half months, and that he deliberately sat on her stomach, saying "this baby should die because it is an infidel. I can make a Muslim baby."

Boys as young as eight were forced to convert to Islam and given religious and military training, including being forced to watch videos of beheadings, The report said.

Yazidis, whose ancient religion has elements of Christianity, Islam and Zoroastrianism, are considered to be devil worshippers by the Sunni Muslim terrorists.

Other religious and ethnic groups have also been targeted, according to the report, which points to the thousands of Christians who fled their homes last June after being ordered by ISIS fighters to convert to Islam, pay a tax or leave.